RTO Standards Series: Part 1 - A Deep Dive into Clause 4 on Governance with Lauren Boon-Hollows and Katya Holker - RTO Superhero 🎙️ Empowering RTOs to Thrive!

Episode Transcript
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Lauren Hollows (00:00):
Hey guys, my name is Lauren Hollows and we
are continuing our RTO Standardsseries, getting into the weeds
today with Katya from HawkeyeConsultancy and Angela from
Vivacity.
Katya, please introduceyourselves to our audience.

Katya Holker (00:28):
I am from Hawkeye Consultancy.
Hawkeye Consultancy wasestablished in 2017 and we're
based here on the Gold Coastwhere I am now not so sunny
today and we offer a range ofdifferent services to RTOs and
universities Anything from duediligence packages, change of
ownership, validation,professional development
workshops so this goes on.
Yeah, very excited to be hereto join you, ladies.

Good and Angela.

Angela Connell-Richards (00:51):
Hi, I'm Angela Connell-Richards.
I am the owner and directorVivacity Coaching and
Consulting.
We've been helping trainingorganisations to get compliance,
save time and save money since2009.
And we've been working in arange of areas, including
initial registration, additionto scope and ongoing
registration requirements, andbeen diving into these new

(01:14):
standards.
So and I'm loving this series,Lauren.

All right.
So today we are going a littlebit something a little bit
different.
We are talking about some ofthe new requirements for
governance within RTOs and,specifically, we're talking
about the leadership of the RTO.
So this is actually somethingthat is, I'm going to argue, is
completely new.
People can disagree with me,that's fine, but leadership is

(01:41):
effective in building andpromoting a positive
organizational culture.
The RTO demonstrates thegoverning person's, foster an
inclusive organizational culturewhere diversity is recognized,
ensure integrity, fairness andtransparency in the delivery of
services, ensure cultural safetyfor first nations staff and
learners, and protect learnersand staff from harassment and

(02:05):
discrimination.
So so I think this is reallyit's a very interesting standard
.
I think there's so many keywords in this.
I just want to start by gettingyour guys kind of just general
initial thoughts on the standard, what you thought when you
first read it.
So, angela, let's start withyou.

Okay, it reminded me a lot of the old
framework that we had many, manyyears ago before ASQA.
So, and before we got thelegislation and the framework
had a lot of information inthere about diversity, ethics,
integrity, all of that that thatwere.

(02:44):
That was back then arequirement to have in our
policies and procedures and thenit got taken away with the
legislation so when we had thenew standards implemented.
So for me it reminded me a lotof, you know, going back in time
, what we used to have had myRTO and we had to have those in

(03:06):
our policies and procedures.
It's also interesting to seethat they've brought First
Nations in.
When we consider a lot oflegislation has changed in a lot
of different areas and peoplewould know that through a lot of
the training products, wherethere are now Aboriginal Torres
Strait Islander units that arewithin different training

(03:27):
products.
So I think it's good thatthey've brought that in as part
of the legislation.
And then NDIS and disabilitiesand making sure that we're
covering those areas as well.
So, yes, it's something newfrom the standards, but it does
take me back in time absolutelyall right, Katya, what were your

(03:50):
first thoughts?

um I thought, yeah , I, I, I welcomed it.
To be honest, I did think itpotentially might be a bit hard
for organizations to properlyimplement, and when I look at
leadership or think ofleadership, it always starts
from the top and it seeps itsway down.
Um, and just in some of my Isuppose ongoing relationships

(04:13):
with some RTOs, the CEO isn'tnecessarily at the operational
level, like all of the staff whoundertake the you know,
day-to-day operations of the RTO.
So I thought, well, that mightbe a bit tricky, not that it's
not important, but it will be abit tricky, potentially managed.
And and look, they sign off adeclaration each year.

(04:33):
They should be aware of thestandards and what the
implications are, but they'resupposed to be nitty-gritty and
I thought that might be a littlebit difficult.
And to even just evident, likehow do we, how are we going to
evident these things and when itcomes to an audit, and but yeah
, I definitely really likedaround the First Nations and the
inclusion of that.
As Angela mentioned, there's alot of shift towards including

(04:55):
that in legislation, which wasgood, and anything around
harassment and discriminationtoo.
I definitely welcomed that too.
There was nothing really there,and I know that some providers
were including it in.
You know.
You know they might have sexualharassment, harassment or
anti-bullying, discriminationpolicies and so.
But I think to actuallylegislate it and makes you know

(05:18):
providers have to do it isprobably really good.
It's going to safeguard ourstaff and learners.
So, yeah, I welcome most of it,but there are some areas I
think it definitely needs to.
Yeah, maybe give a bit moreguidance as to what they want to
see, um, how can people ensureintegrity and what does that

(05:38):
look like?
And to ensure consistency aswell, when providers what they
think is integrity might becompletely different, um, to
another provider.
So I think that probably justneeds to be streamlined a bit or
more, provided just given.
I think the other major changejust needs to be streamlined a
bit or more, provided just given.

I think the other major change is going to
be the cultural awarenesstraining that you're going to
need to implement within RTO Ithink that's going to depend a
lot on the training packages andthe cohorts that a lot of
people deal with, um, you know,I think that that's going to
become a big component of it.
I think this is one of thoseinteresting standards because,

(06:14):
you know, very similar to manyother areas of the standards.
I think everyone looks at thatand goes there's nothing in
there.
I disagree with right.
I absolutely agree that weshould foster inclusive cultures
.
We should be, we should haveintegrity, we should be
transparent, we should be fair,have integrity, we should be
transparent, we should be fair.
We should ensure culturalsafety, we should protect our

(06:35):
staff.
Um, I think the question is thatbeyond a policy, how do we
evidence this?
Um, you know, and I think thisis one of where, where we get to
some of these particular areas,this is where I always find it,
I think, for a lot of RTOs, Ithink they find it really
challenging to understand whatdoes this mean beyond a policy,

(06:58):
right?
So, you know, I want to juststart like let's just break
these down one at a time.
So, foster an inclusiveorganizational culture where
diversity is recognized.
Now we're going to have accessand equity policies.
You know we're going to havedisability access and inclusion
plans.
You know we're going to have apolicy that says we foster an

(07:21):
organizational culture.
Beyond that policy, what doesthis look like for an RTO to be
able to demonstrate that thegoverning persons are doing this
?

should I start or until you want to.

Yeah, I've got thoughts on it.
So I think, um one is going tobe changing the position
description requirements of CEOand senior management within RTO
to make sure that not onlythere is a diversity and
inclusive policy and procedurebut they're implementing it.
And what does that procedurelook like?

(07:57):
What would be part of thatprocess?
And one of the things that ourteam identified when we did the
pilot program was a culturalawareness training.
So implementing a culturalawareness training for staff and
governing persons to enhancetheir understanding and
appreciation of diversity.
And that's what we saw in thereNot only cultural awareness

(08:22):
training for their existing team, but incorporating that into
their induction process, notonly for their staff but also
for their students.

And I think what's really important, the training
it's good that you're doing atthe start, but then is there any
guides or any furtherdocumentation that can actually
assist staff to continue withthat?
A lot of times they can read it, something you know that they,
they read it and then it'sforgotten about, or they're
provided training and they mightnot you know, they might not

(08:55):
remember the importance of it.
So is there any follow-upprocess or any guidance or
networking opportunities for andstaff to just kind of refresh
that as they go on?
I think is really important too.
But I definitely agree withAngela's suggestions in terms of
cultural um training veryimportant, but then having that

(09:16):
extra layer of also making surethere's additional support
mechanisms there for them, Ithink this is going to look very
different across.

You know different RTOs.
You know what I mean.
Like if this is going to lookvery different in our tradie
RTOs than it is going to look inour, you know, our community
services.
RTOs, where you know some ofthese concepts and some of this
terminology may already be alittle bit more embedded within,
like the organizations thatthey're working with, um, I

(09:45):
think, within some of our tradiesectors.
That's probably where some ofthe stuff is going to be a
little bit more challenging tomanagement and staff, and most
probably even to studentsabsolutely, and resources too.

there's smaller providers there.
Is this going to be anadditional cost that they need
to factor in?
And we undertook a culturaltraining one day and it you know
, it was two thousand dollarsfor our team.
Like, there's some providersthat may not potentially have
the fees available to be able tospend that, and so they
probably need to be aware ofthat, and that's where it's very

(10:26):
important that it is suited toeach of the different providers
out there.

Yeah absolutely.
All right, we will come backwith 4.2b in just a moment.
Guys, my name is Lauren Hollisfrom Aniwaya Education Services.
We are talking everything 4.2leadership today with Katya from
Hawkeye Consultancy and thelovely Angela from Vivacity.
If you guys need any of theirinformation, you'll be able to
find all their contact detailsso that you can follow them on
all of their socials just below.

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RTO Standards Series: Part 1 - A Deep Dive into Clause 4 on Governance with Lauren Boon-Hollows and Katya Holker

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}RTO Standards Series: Part 1 - A Deep Dive into Clause 4 on Governance with Lauren Boon-Hollows and Katya Holker